“Go get the inspirational speeches from someone else. I’m [angry],” Williams told MLB.com, responding to a question concerning the White Sox chances to claim an American League Central over the final 40 games. “This team should be 10 games over .500 right now.

“That’s the bad news. The good news is we still have time to right the ship. But if you are looking for inspiration, or anyone is, or pats on the back from this recent surge, you are looking at the wrong person. I’ll give you a pat on the back if you end up in first place.”

Williams said that anything short of winning the division would be an obvious disappointment, adding that winning the division really isn’t even good enough in the White Sox championship-oriented minds. He acknowledged, as an example, being impressed by Alejandro De Aza’s play since called up to the big league club, as the outfielder is batting .310 and infusing life into the White Sox lineup.

But he added that he’ll be more impressed if De Aza keeps it up.

“Nothing is going to impress me the rest of the year unless we are in first place at the end,” Williams said. “Other than that, it’s just find a way to win today.”

March 31, 2011

So, how weakened are the Twins, and is the retooled White Sox offense and bullpen enough to make up the six games the team trailed Minnesota by in 2010? What follows is by no means a definitive outlook, but an educated projection, position by position, on how the two clubs stack up. (Wins Above Replacement, or WAR, is the standardized figure I’m using to compare players and teams.) …

November 7, 2010

So, how did Williams do as Chicago’s general manager in 2010? This analysis draws upon the player season values at FanGraphs (where they basically assign a value to player’s WAR, with one win above replacement equating to $4 million) to see if the White Sox got their money’s worth from each player on the roster.

Positional totals come from the player’s FanGraphs value subtracted by season salary, and numbers below are expressed in millions. ..

• The White Sox finished second in the AL Central with a 88-74 record and a team payroll $103.1 million. Profit: $62.8 million

• The AL Central champion Minnesota Twins were 94-68 with a team payroll of $97.7 million. Profit: $106.4 million …

September 4, 2010

Most markedly, Cooper’s suggestion to Jackson that he apply the “Jose Contreras Treatment”—i.e., a more erect posture in his delivery—has worked wonders. (It’s neither a surprise that Cooper spotted the flaw immediately upon viewing tape of Jackson nor that he was hopping exciting to get the flamethrower in trade.)

Jackson brought a 5.16 ERA with him from the Arizona Diamondbacks and has offered up a clean 1.47 ERA so far with the White Sox, along with reducing his H/9 a full two, from 9.4 in Arizona to 7.4. He’s also cut his walks in half (4.0 BB/9 to 2.0 BB/9) while increasing his strikeouts by four (11.0 K/9 in Chicago vs. just 7.0 K/9 in Arizona). Those factors have combined to have increased Jackson’s K/BB by 200%, from 1.73 with the Diamondbacks to 5.63 with the White Sox.

… Let’s take a look at some other famous Cooper turnaround efforts, beginning with the two players the pitching coach himself was quickest to cite:

July 25, 2010

1. White Sox trade Brandon McCarthy to the Texas Rangers for John Danks and Nick Masset

Dec. 23, 2006; +13.9 WAR

McCarthy’s fleeting discipline already had disappointed the White Sox, but to have turned him into Danks (15.6 WAR and rising). Masset and McCarthy is a wash, so in essence Danks’s 41 wins, four seasons, and sub-4.00 ERA arrived in Chicago for free.

May 17, 2010

Sabermetricians have always been on the search for the best way to measure wins contributed by players. Baseball Prospectus has WARP, Bill James has win shares and now we are presenting Sean Smith’s Wins Above Replacement or WAR data on the site. …

July 12, 2009

Since I’m not a fan of merging lists that are just loosely related, and then presenting them as something seemingly unified, I’ll refer to these Wins Above Replacement (WAR) lists as WApR (Wins Above peer-Replacements).

And finally, the numbers go all the way back to 1871 for hitters and 1876 for pitchers. Some of the estimates used to fill these stats in, like the baserunning regression formula or the JAARF fielding numbers, are not to be trusted as anything more than a reasonable guess. Catcher defensive ratings are based on passed balls and errors only. It is not worth it to even try to estimate performance against the running game by catcher assists. Mike Piazza had about as many assists per game as Johnny Bench. Enough said.